The Paperless Office

Mind Maps

2011-03-27T23:48:00.001+01:00

I've been on a training course, and the guy advocated use of Mind Maps. Not a new concept to me, but a revisited one. Given that I am TOTALLY paperless in my work, I am in a dilemma. Are the mind map software packages any good?

Email Tip - the use of EOM

2011-03-23T20:01:00.000Z

Emails are a bain in our lives, we cannot do without them, but there are too many of them.

Sometimes we only need to send a one line email and there's a clever way to save time for the recipient - put your message in the title line and put EOM at the end. EOM means End Of Message, and your email client (eg Outlook, Thunderbird, GMail, Hotmail, etc) will recognise that and not hassle you by saying "you've left the body of the email empty".

Ha! Timesaveer!

New media v Old media

2010-03-09T23:27:00.000Z

This YouTube video may be a few months old now, but it's very enlightening on the power of the Internet in the media world. Anyone who ignores the internet risks their business. Harness its power and you are at least standing still, if not moving forward

So very nearly ordered an iPhone....

2009-11-25T15:47:00.000Z

I blogged before about how I was going to wait for Orange to release their prices, as I expected that it would mean O2 (my preferred network) would then be forced to bring their price down. WRONG! Orange matched O2 pricing, and I've been pondering for a week or so when to order.

The the Times tell us here that Tesco would be releasing the iPhone ahead of Vodafone and TMobile, and I'd certainly put money on Tesco starting a price war. Oh dear, when should I get my iPhone, I wonder?

I want an iPhone - but now is not the right time

2009-10-01T17:33:00.000+01:00

I have been pondering for some weeks whether or not to get an iPhone and last week decided to take the plunge. Given I had to be in the office on Friday, and I needed to be at home for the iPhone to be delivered, I put off ordering it until this Monday. Good job too! On Friday Orange announced they (my provider) O2 no longer had exclusivity with Apple, and you will soon be able to get iPhone on Orange UK. Then, hot on the heels of that, it seems that Vodafone UK will follow suit in the spring.

Hold tight! Prices will have to come down with this level of competition around, and I can certainly wait in a recession for lower prices!

Taxi!

2009-08-27T21:06:00.003+01:00

Dependent on the time of day and your location, hailing a London cab is often a random game of chance - will you, or wont you, manage to find one of those welcoming golden lights which stays lit all the way along the road until it reaches you? A game of chance, of course.

Prefacing this with a "I have not used this service yet", it was a very pleasant surprise to hear of a fab use of technology in the London cab market. TweetALondonCab - yes, send a direct message on Twitter saying where you want to go from and to, and a cab turns up. Start by checking their Twitter page and their website to see how it works. Good luck, guys, you are ahead of the game.

Spotify is so much cheaper than iTunes - it's free!

2009-07-25T15:06:00.003+01:00

For those of you who spend too much time at your PC/laptop and want an easy way to play your own selection of music as you work. Better still there's no downloading from iTunes and even better, the basic service is FREE! As I type this, I'm listening to some rag-time piano by Scott Joplin. You need to go to Spotify.com and download a very small app, and it's dead easy from there. The freebie service includes adverts every so often, but hey, they're short and only ever one at a time - so nothing like your local commercial radio station which seems to be playing more and more advertising minutes per hour than you thought was legal.

UPDATE:

Unlimited Streaming Music on iPhone: Apple Approves Spotify

UPPER CASE or lower case?

2009-05-01T10:58:00.002+01:00

I get asked this one on a fairly regular basis, so let's cover it off here.

Email addresses
These can be upper or lower or mixed case. Your email system does not care, and in fact will convert it to lower case. So, if it makes it easier to read on business cards etc, use mixed case like JohnSmith@MyCompany.com

Website addresses (aka "URLs")

Your basic domain name can be mixed case - so www.MyCompany.com and www.mycompany.com and www.MYCOMPANY.com will all get to the right place
After the basic domain name you need to match the correct case or a browser may not find the right page. So http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cart/view.html is not the same as http://www.amazon.co.uk/GP/cart/view.html for example. This is because some websites are hosted on an operating system called Unix which does care about UPPER and lower case.

Passwords are usually case sensitive and I would encourage you to use upper and lower case letters and digits in any password - this makes it much more tamper-proof.

Cloud Computing

2009-05-01T10:38:00.002+01:00

"What on earth?", I hear you say! A good start (if you like lots of detail) is the Wikipedia definition, but I'm planning a short update here to give an overview.

The simple approach is that Cloud Computing is where you are storing information on the web, rather than on your hard drive or a memory stick, and you do not necessarily know or care exactly where it is stored. So examples would be

GMail but not Outlook
Google Documents but not MS Word or Excel
Facebook
Flickr and other photo storage sites
etc

Benefits - you can work from anywhere and know that you have all the information available at your fingertips. a personal "Paperless Office" - hence the title of this blog. And yes, I do operate a paperless office! Those of you who have seen my desk will laugh, but any hard copy here would have arrived by post and will ultimately be destined for my bin or my shredder.

Word of caution. If you are storing business information in this way, you ought to find out where the data is physically stored as any legal issues with the data could need to be handled under the laws of that country.

Recession Tip #4 - Money for old mobiles

2009-01-21T07:45:00.001Z

Heard this advert recently to get money for old mobiles. Searched in bottom drawer and found four "candidates" and checked out their values on Mazuma's website. One was too old, but the other three were OK and they quoted me a figure of £61. I had thought about selling them on eBay before, but you only get decent money there if you can unlock a mobile from its network (mine are all O2 configured), and you have the charger and the manual - which, as it happens, I do for each mobile. Condition not important, just that it works and the screen is not too scratched.

So late in the evening of Monday 12th, I get my quote from Mazuma after getting the IMEI number from the barcode sticker underneath the battery. They send me a freepost envelope. I put three mobiles in a little padded bag inside into their envelope. It sits on my desk 24 hours as I was not going to the Post Office that day (to get a postal receipt). They receive it, verify the details I filed online. They confirm by email all is OK. Cheque arrives Tuesday 20th - total eight days including one day of delay I built in. Perfect!

It all works like this - I verify that was exactly what happened. Free money! Go for it!

Recession Tip #3 - Renegotiate your company car lease

2009-01-16T16:11:00.003Z

Some of the people hit worst by the Recession are those where certain financial "events" hit them this year - consider, for example, someone coming up to retirement age who cannot work on for health reasons - but the value of their pension fund has been trashed by the stock market changes in the last 9 months. Could you survive on 60% of what you planned to?

On a much smaller scale, but having personal financial impact, the lease of my company car expires in April 2009. So I got a quote from my lease company to replace the car with a brand new one of the same spec, and the new lease was 20% more expensive than the current one - due presumably to them marking down the likely end-of-lease resale figure. Ouch, particularly when my limits are in terms of the lease price not the value of the car itself.

So I looked at other options. Cars from other similar manufacturers such as Mercedes are out, because the lease company is owned by BMW and they tweak the lease prices to buy market share. Cars from a bit further down market were not ticking my boxes. Talking to a friendly BMW dealer 100 miles away, they priced up a private lease on a pre-registered heavily-discounted new car, and still could not beat the price I was offered for a new list-price car.

Then the light-bulb moment! Extend the current lease. Fortunately I am well within the pre-agreed mileage I set when my current car was new, and I now work from home so I could extend the three year lease to four years without extending the mileage. The answer - I keep my car an extra year, and the lease price is down by 10%. Then, when I come to replace it the new model will be out, I can hope that the economy will have stabilised etc, but at least I can plan ahead with a lower lease price until April 2010.

Recession Tip #2 - eBay sells NEW items, not just old ones

2009-01-02T13:00:00.002Z

eBay is great, and I have sold a lot of stuff there - a feedback figure of over 300 for a private ad-hoc trader shows the level I use it... for selling old stuff and buying new stuff. Yes, buying NEW stuff.

Here's an example from today. I need a SCART to SCART lead. after buying a 3-way SCART box and forgetting I needed a cable to connect it to the TV. Doh! My local catalogue shop Argos sells them for £4.79 (see here) and I could walk there and back in 10 minutes. Checked eBay and just bought a new one for £1.98 including post and packing (see here), a saving of 59%. Next, I thought I would price up a 4-way extension bar. Argos was £5.47 (see here) and eBay £2.94 including delivery (see here), a 46% saving.

Point made?

Recession Tip #1 - Amazon Seller Account

2009-01-01T13:00:00.003Z

Practically everyone I speak to about Amazon thinks the site is just one big company selling loads of stuff, gradually expanding in to new markets. Some say they have noticed the "Used and new" prices but very few have ventured further.

So, how can you as a consumer benefit in the Recession?

If you insist on buying something new - for example, the item is a birthday present for your mother-in-law and you want to avoid a family row. Check out the "used and new" prices - often there are shops selling surplus stocks at lower prices, but still New items. Remember Amazon are crafty because they have full and easy access to these prices and can alter their own selling prices accordingly.
If you just need the item, and want the cheapest price. Check out the "used and new" prices - significant savings to be made, but remember you pay post on all items.
If you only need the item once, for example a DVD. Buy it new (see above) and then re-sell it on Amazon Market Place. The difference is your rental cost of the item - compare that to Blockbuster or similar.
You have items at home in very good condition but you don't need them, particularly books. Sell them on Amazon Market Place.

Amazon Market Place - The selling costs are a little higher than eBay, but only charged if you sell the item. The ease of listing is staggering, and the items are listed until they are sold, with a standard 90-day period and easy re-listing process. See my current listing of books for sale

Look out for more Recession Tips soon

Profit after tax is NOT spend-able cash

2008-12-28T13:00:00.000Z

OK, so I worked for five years for a firm of accountants in the City of London (Neville Russell, now part of Mazars), and I guess that gives me a head-start in understanding a set of financial accounts.

Let's take a step back. Anyone in the UK can get hold of the latest set of accounts and the Annual Return of a company from the government department known as Companies House.

The Annual Return gives you a list of company directors and their home address, together with a list of shareholders (and their home addresses) and their shareholdings.
The Financial Accounts are a much more complex, and the most frequently misunderstood document is the "Profit and Loss Account" which looks at how much money they got from trading, and the costs they spent while trading - such as buying the stock, paying the staff, the light and heat bill, etc etc. But it does NOT cover how they spent cash in buying assets, and it is quite feasible that and spare cash (and more..) could have been used in buying new equipment, new group companies and so on.

My point? Employees should not look at their employer's accounts and say "they made enough money, they can afford my pay rise" - an employee expecting any more than a pay freeze in this market has their head in the clouds, frankly. And past year's trading profits do not mean that the employer has cash surpluses available for distribution.

I survived Christmas without going to a shop

2008-12-27T15:11:00.003Z

Those of you who read this blog will know that I like using the net a lot. So it will not surprise you that I did all my Christmas shopping online and never went near a shop. Amazon got their act together this year and delivery was spot on - even a late order for 6 items on the evening of Sunday 21st December arrived before noon on Tuesday 23rd. eBay shops were good, charity cards arrived by post and I sneaked some wrapping paper my wife had stored away in the loft after buying it in the January sales nearly a year ago.

Coming from a family of retailers, I got a fair amount of stick when I told them on 25th that I had not been to a shop this Christmas. "You should support the High Street", they told me, implying that the only way to ensure a retailer made money was people coming through the front door of a physical shop. It seems to escape some retailers that the as the recession hits deeper and deeper, the retailers who are most likely to survive are the ones with the lowest cost base - those with a virtual front door online open 24x7. It certainly does not need to be the only part of the mix, but it is very likely to be a key component.

None of us know how long or deep this recession will be, although most media columnists are erring on the side of caution, and realistic employees are more than happy settling for zero pay rises in the knowledge that they still have a job. Spending patterns are changing significantly with a much higher percentage paying by cash than shops have seen for years, and credit card payments taking a dent as inidividuals max-out their accounts. However, I also see big changes in web retailing - where the much lower costs leads to lower selling prices, in turn showing an acceleration in spending online over the high street.

Support retailers I did - supporting those with the vision to sell online.

Social Networking in a business environment - 2

2008-12-07T19:33:00.003Z

Having written last week about LinkedIn.com, this week I turn to a more controversial site - Facebook. Up to perhaps a year ago, Facebook was largely dominated by the 14-24 age group, but a real sea-change has occurred and I would put the top end of the age range more like 60-70 ,although that may be stretching it a bit far.

Facebook is much more "social" in what it seeks to do, and includes much more on personal interests, online games and keeping up to date with what everyone is doing. So, you say, what's that go to do with business? Well, in these days of homeworking and disparate teams, Facebook is the glue that keeps such groups of people together. In my own team, for example, I have colleagues in UK, France, Finland, Spain, Romania and Egypt. Of these, I have personally met just one face-to-face, although that is being addressed early in 2009 with a plan to go to Cairo for a week. And, of course, I work from home.

So, excluding IM which we use for formal comms, we have no water cooler to chat at. Facebook is our virtual water cooler. Sharing photos, what you've been doing, forming groups etc gives a sense of belonging. Then extend that from business networking to the people you send your Christmas cards too - and instead of sending something once a year, you can keep in touch with them right through the year.

Social Networking in a business environment - 1

2008-11-30T15:13:00.004Z

Still too many people I am in contact with dismiss social networking as a passing craze for teenagers. Let me explain. An article in today's Sunday Times on Reid Harrison, founder of LinkedIn.com, prompted me to write this blog entry. He's expecting the reach of his website to double in the next 12 months from the current 32M, particularly fuelled by the global recession forcing people go to jobhunting when they did not expect to be. LinkedIn is a business networking site where you share elements of your CV in such a way that other people may contact you from seeing or searching on various key words. That may be an employer name, a job role or whatever. Headhunters have been using LinkedIn and other similar sites for some time now as an easy source of data, and I should know, I'm married to one!

And it's certainly not for just jobhunting. Employees of companies big and small, and the huge band of self-employed people can also benefit by the networking opportunities the site brings. For example, you may think "I'd like to get in touch with someone from company X for such-and-such a project", and a quick search on LinkedIn will bring you back the answers. By using a three-level network (think of that as "three degrees of separation"), you have better access to people within three steps of you, ie

people you know
people known to those at level 1
people known to those at level 2

Right now I have a little over 200 direct contacts (level 1) and nearly 4.5 MILLION, yes MILLION, across all three levels. Go on, sign up, and then link to me as the person who introduced you! New jobs, projects and opportunities could follow very soon.

Fuel prices - finding the cheapest and avoiding anger

2008-11-15T21:46:00.002Z

If you are in the UK, here's how to find the cheapest fuel prices in your area. The website PetrolPrices.com is a great FREE service which tells you the cheapest five filling stations in a 5/10/15/20 (you choose) mile radius of a given postcode. If you sign up, also FREE, they will email you the latest prices weekly just so you can check you are getting the best deal. How does it all work? Well, they purchase data from the fuel card companies which gives date/time of the transaction, the filling station identity and the price. Sorted.

Another fuel-related tip. You'd have thought that I would be the first to use "pay at pump", but no.... I have tried it twice in recent months and the filling stations concerned have a limit on the amount a card with authorise via "pay at pump". This is often £50 or £60, and when I go to fill up, I need about £75 worth. Still, at least I get 50mpg on a long run out of my car, so who's complaining?

Save time - use a kiosk

2008-11-08T21:12:00.002Z

Kiosk technology is coming at us from all directions, and it's another great time-saving use of technology. I went to Argos the other day to get a new mouse - my corporate purchasing department cannot supply a replacement mouse to a home-worker like me inside three weeks, so it seemed sensible to pop across to the shop (5 mins walk) and buy a spare one for myself. All my current spares were old little round socket ones, not USB :-(

So, you walk into Argos and you check out the massive catalogue first until you find your number, pop that into the stock checker to confirm they have the item, technology in itself. Then wander over to the kiosk, tap your item number and quantity in, check out, put your credit card in and the order is none. No contact with Miss Stroppalot behind the till any more.

Then Friday I went to the doctors (routine weight management advice, nothing more!) and there you not only book your appointments over the net, but you check in for your appointment using a kiosk - similar to the one in the photo. Brilliant and dead easy. No more contact with Hyacinth Bouquet behind the glass - yippee!

Over at the airport, lots more kiosks for saving you time checking in. Why queue ever again? I urge you - USE KIOSKS.

Did someone forget to include RSS in the marketing budget?

2008-11-01T20:37:00.007Z

RSS is a technology that has not had the marketing push behind it that it deserves. For anyone interested in news, it is a very simple and effort-saving way of picking up the headlines and allowing you to review just the one(s) you want - and lots more info can be found at the Google Reader FAQ Page. On the other side, newspapers and broadcasters are generally very good at putting RSS feeds on their websites. Black mark of the bunch goes to the corporate press officers, though.

Woefully few companies issuing corporate press releases have RSS feeds - some people know I have a passing interest in helicopters, and I'd expect the major manufacturers to have RSS feeds on their websites. Shock Horror - NONE of them do - check out the websites of AgustaWestland, Bell, Eurocopter, MD Helicopters, Robinson and Sikorsky. I grant you that the parent companies of Bell (Textron) and Eurocopter (EADS) do have RSS feeds, but the helicopter manufacturers do not. Hang your heads in shame! Always look out for the RSS feed icon - the orange square with the white "radio waves" broadcasting from the "transmitter". They're usually seen on any blog - for example, check out the "Subscribe to Posts (Atom)" link at the bottom of this page.

Browser wars - Microsoft look out!

2008-09-11T05:55:00.002+01:00

Back from a month of holidays and catching up... And a new browser appears on the market. I gave up using Microsoft IE years ago, it's just so slow and clunky and others have shown themselves to be miles more innovative and responsive to user demands.

And then there's Google Chrome. I downloaded it and installed it easily. For the average web user, it's probably fine, but I am a fairly demanding user and there are a number of things which do not work and I have had to file bug reports. Believe it or not, if you open a GoogleDocs spreadsheet in Chrome, you cannot use right-click. For me that's a big issue. Conclusion - still a bit buggy, but obviously a massive effort and we should never under-estimate Google. All power to your elbows guys at lining up fairly and squarely against Microsoft and good luck in the ensuing war. Firefox has shown that IE has a convertible user base - IE now only accounts for 75% of the market and it used to be the high 90s.

Round-the-World Helicopter

2008-08-09T09:44:00.003+01:00

An excellent use of technology - a round-the-world speed record attempt is currently under way and you can follow them LIVE on the web, including the speed they are flying. Took off from Virginia USA on Thursday, landing on West coast of Greenland. Friday took them on through Iceland, Faroe Islands to the south of the UK. Saturday they flew on to Germany where they currently are, thanks to satellite tracking on their website. Good luck Scott and Steve - hope you smash that record! Can they top the 169.2 knots they managed earlier (that's about 195mph, pretty amazing for a helicopter)?

Using Technology at the Motor Show

2008-08-02T23:15:00.002+01:00

Had a few hours at the British Motor Show today at London's ExCeL. Ultimately looking for a new car in 8 months time (have I really had my current one 2 years and 4 months?) and making some initial enquiries at Saab and Jaguar stands. Passed by Mercedes-Benz, as their UK place is just up the road from my house (and I went there later in the day), and missed BMW and Audi who were not exhibiting (wassup??). Actually, I'll admit to checking out Lexus too, but it only reinforced my view on them being rebadged Toyota's and lacking the finesse of the BMWs and Mercs I have had in recent years.

Both Jag and Saab had girlies to take my enquiry details on a handheld, no doubt linked through to their back office to send me the relevant information - and excellent use of technology. The Jag lady seemed very keen on flashing her legs at me (sorry, darling, I'm very happily married and my son's sitting right behind us, thanks) but she did allow us to go up to the VIP area for coffee and croissants courtesy of Leith's catering. The Saab lady was much less salesy and more keen on getting my details on her system and assured me that some stuff would arrive in my inbox within 8 hours. Not sure about why there was a delay like that (doesn't the internet allow us to do everything NOW?), or why there's nothing here 12 hours after she told me. Hmmm...

Nice touch-screen on the Jaguar XF too!

My Voucher Codes

2008-08-02T00:28:00.004+01:00

Another marevellous use of internet technology, and catching out silly retailers who are not very bright! This website is a central point for money-savers to exchange information on money-off vouchers from retailers so that multiple customers can use the same code. Now perhaps some retailers don't mind, but usually the idea is that vouchers are one-time-use items. Check it out at myvouchercodes.co.uk

Internet Messaging grows up

2008-07-25T18:00:00.000+01:00

For a good number of years, IM has been primarily an application for school and college friends to communicate when they are not at their place of education, a sort of live version of texting to spread the load over more fingers than just the one. Gradually, the corporate world caught on, and internal communication within companies has significantly improved and reduced the number of emails required between nearby desks. As globalisation has impacted the larger corporates, particularly those with teams distributed in many locations, IM has become invaluable - my own team of 14 people including myself are spread over 8 different locations, and we se IM as our primary method of immediate communications, ahead of picking up a phone. Indeed, I have used IM in parallel with other methods - for example, two people communicating via IM while they are both party to a conference call with other people.

I have noticed more recently that some online shops have finally woken up to the fact that offering IM is similar to providing an assistant in a shop, and can result in a better conversion rate - ie the percentage of website visitors becoming paying customers. I had a useful chat with a guy at Dell the other day, and he helped me though a technical query I had on graphics cards. Yawn Yawn, you say - yes, but next time you get offered IM help while online shopping, beware there's a salesman out there trying to sell you something!

MoneySavingExpert.com

2008-07-23T18:00:00.000+01:00

Really a UK-specific site, MoneySavingExpert.com is the site of a journalist who used one gem of a piece of information to launch his website. Knowing how to fund a new venture is always a difficult thing to achieve, but Martin Lewis not only worked that out, but had the marketing push behind him as well. Now with many and regular TV and radio appearances under his belt, Martin has a phenomenal website to help consumers save money, get out of debt and so on.

Obviously a very useful site in these uncertain economic times, Martin has a good team working with him now, such is the volume of work. The catch is that he has no formal financial training, coming to this website venture from the journalism angle – writing articles on money-saving ideas for consumers. And given that he sends his weekly email on money-saving tips to over 1,000,000 people, he must be doing something right!

MyDeco.com

2008-07-21T18:00:00.000+01:00

MyDeco.com is my current favourite website from the “web technical” point of view. What it achieves, and at the speed it works, is a massive achievement and one which many other websites should seek to emulate.

Formed by Brent Hoberman, co-founder of LastMinute.com, this website helps you envisage how a room of your house will look once you have redecorated it – using the products of 500+ retailers and manufacturers of furniture, paint, wallpaper etc who are associated with the site. You specify the shape and size of your room, and it will create it for you. Hoberman’s partner on LastMinute.com, Martha Lane-Fox is a non-exec director.

Are you missing out by not using the Windows button?

2008-07-12T18:07:00.000+01:00

Ever wondered what that button between Ctrl and Alt does? Glance down this list and see what you have been missing! Quicker doing this than using a mouse...

Win-D Desktop
Win-E Explorer (Windows Explorer, not Internet Explorer)
Win-F Find
Win-M Minimise all windows (takes you to your Desktop)
Win-R Run
Win-U Utility Manager (for those with vision or hearing difficulties)

Typing - the #1 technical life skill you need

2008-07-09T18:00:00.001+01:00

Life skills come in all sorts of shapes and forms, personal, emotional, physical, technical, etc. My #1 technical life skill is definitely the ability to touch type, and it has helped me enormously from University (where I studied Computer Science) onwards. My mother told me that she had booked me in for a four-week typing course the summer I turned 17, and sure enough I went along 0900-1630 five days a week for four weeks and learned to type. Fortunately I was not the only bloke there - the other guy was from a rich oil family in Kuwait! I was a bit green in those days and the girlies on the course were all a bit embarassing and enough years older than me that I assumed they had boyfriends or at least enough experience in the chatting-up stakes for me to bother showing any interest. A chance missed in learning how to chat-up, but not relevant in the long term as I certainly found the right one in the end and we recently celebrated 15 years of marriage.

So, typing. A skill which will help you progress a lot faster in anything to do with a keyboard. It saved me paying someone to type my A-level Geography project at school, my thesis at University (got top marks of the year for it too, they told me!) and so on. Now working in IT, it puts me ahead of a number of people who still have to stare at the keyboard using two fingers and a thumb. In a four week course, I achieved the Pitmans Elementary award (the nearest equivalent today is this) and got to 38 wpm. Currently I type at 45-50wpm, which means that I can type files notes of a conversation with a customer as we are talking. Very useful.

Using Google search more efficiently : Tip #1

2008-07-07T18:00:00.000+01:00

Very few people know about the power of Google Search. If you typed Mickey Mouse into Google, you would get hits for Mickey Mouse, and any other page where the word Mickey and the word Mouse appeared - thus including anyone else called Mickey and anyone or anything else called Mouse. Put inverted commas into the equation "Mickey Mouse" and your hits returned are just those places where the eponymous Disney character appears.

Next level of complexity allows you to search for one thing OR another, and those capitals are important. So a search on "Mickey Mouse" OR "Donald Duck" would find any page where either character was mentioned, but does not require both to appear. Leaving out the OR would be the same as putting AND in there, so it searches for pages where one AND the other name appear ie both.

To-Do lists

2008-07-04T21:08:00.000+01:00

Admissions admissions.... There IS some paper in my "paperless office", but only a little bit, honest! The last two uses for paper on my desk are my diary and my to-do list.

My diary is a sore point really. At work I have an online corporate calendar system that allows me to check other people's availability and book time in their diary, and that automatically interfaces with Outlook on my laptop. Then there's another system within my division which looks at what role I am performing at any particular time of the day, so it knows when to allocate me more work etc. Then there's my home/social diary which I don't want linked with my work diaries and the complications of manually linking these systems. I need to ponder this further and will write about it another day.

But my "To-Do" list is easier than that. Previously there were lists here, lists there, lists from my wife, repeating tasks I need to remember to do regularly etc. And then I found RememberTheMilk.com - developed out of Australia and a most useful system it is too. Multiple lists for different things, and you can build in alerts to email you etc. And like most other things I recommend on this blog, it's free.

Public bookmarking - an opportunity, not a threat

2008-07-03T08:51:00.004+01:00

I'm sure you, like me, have seen colleagues who have a complete screen full of icons on the PC, and/or have a labyrinth of bookmarks in the relevant menu options of their browser. And then on their PC at home, a completely new set of bookmarks, still equally disorganised.

Enter del.icio.us - or to be exact http://del.icio.us Firstly, a dastardly clever use of the .us domain country ending, and then a darn useful website to boot. More recently bought up by Yahoo!, the del.icio.us website is for your bookmarks - you store them on the site for your future use. The twist is that everyone else can have access to them too, and before you gasp in disbelief, I see it as an opportunity, not a threat.

Each bookmark has tags associated with them, single words that you choose to help classify your bookmark. Say for example you have lots of bookmarks about cars, you may choose "BMW" to be a tag or "Mercedes" or whatever. Then, when you have multiple "BMW" bookmarks you can see them all together.

The added twist with del.icio.us is that you can see how many other people have registered the same bookmarks as you, and how they have tagged them - moreover, by looking at other sites they have tagged with the same description, you could then find new sites which are very useful for what you do. The possibilities are enormous, and it's free.

How to make a buck on eBay

2008-07-01T14:15:00.002+01:00

eBay is a phenomenal success, all from a girl asking her geek boyfriend to write a website to sell her collection of Pez sweet dispensers! They are in the news today with a 40M Euro fine for allowing fake stuff to be sold on the site, but that's not what I am writing about! Normally I just use eBay to get rid of surplus stuff and buy new items like stationery that is cheaper there than going to a shop, even taking P&P into account.

What I've been pondering, though, is how best to use fatfingers.co.uk. This is a very clever website, working on the assumption that a proportion of people cannot spell, or have fat fingers and just mis-type the word. So let's say you collect Wedgwood pottery. You go to this site, type in Wedgwood, use the dropdown to choose which eBay site and click the Find button. It then opens a new window in eBay with the result - all mis-spellings of Wedgwood in current auctions.

So, now you have auctions which by the vast majority of people (who know how to spell) will not find, and you should be able to get a bargain. Knowledge of your subject and how much you can resell for should reap its benefits, and then slip me a fiver in with my Christmas card please!

Now, if you really want to be clever, design a site that takes this further and finds a recently closed sale for the same item and compares the prices. By monitoring lots of auctions, it should be able to identify the very best bargains.

House prices

2008-06-28T22:58:00.002+01:00

Funny old world. For years house prices have been going up and up and up. Online we have houseprices.co.uk and other similar sites where you can check out actual sale prices in your area, your road, even next door. Check out the postcode SW19 4TN if you want to make your eyes water.

But now, as prices dip in some areas and freefall in others, a new clever site tracks prices going down, and how much by. Picking their name from the opposite of property tv programme Property Ladder, the website www.propertysnake.co.uk keeps a track on zillions of houses for sale, but only flags them up when the price is cut.

This site was very helpful to me - we were planning a move, only to discover that the area where we were selling was dropping a lot faster than the one we were planning to move to, and thus the gap was widening and becoming less affordable. Thanks to Jackie d'A for telling us of that useful site.

How to create PDF files for free

2008-06-28T10:00:00.001+01:00

PDF format files are a very useful way of transferring documents between PCs of all different sorts. Unless you are very determined to break it, PDF format is generally regarded as "Read-Only" although the smarter documents do allow data input over the web. Let's stick with the standard Read-Only ones for the moment.

I'm sure, like me, you have at least a few times thought "I wish I could create my own PDF files" rather than email someone a Word document, for example, but the Adobe software is expensive. There are a couple of web services you can use, but they add on a page with their own advert on the end of the document, which is both annoying and unprofessional - and thus useless. PrimoPDF to the rescue - a FREE download to do the trick. I've started using it recently and it works well. Go to www.PrimoPDF.com and download then install.

How I cut down my fuel costs using the web

2008-06-24T10:10:00.003+01:00

Everyone knows that fuel prices are climbing steeply and that there's no reduction in sight. Many people like me in the UK use the PetrolPrices.com website to check out where to find the least expensive fuel in their area, and that's certainly a good start. This site is powered by fuel card data, and uploaded every day or so - hence they can tell the selling price per litre at practically every filling station in the UK.

However, I went one stage further. Having been approved to work full-time from home, we (family of four with two children aged 8 and 11) did not need two cars any more. Given that I have a leased car, it had to be my wife's BMW 120d which was for the chop - approaching three years old, it was soon due its first MoT and the insurance renewal was looming. I'm realy not into all this AutoTrader lark, waiting in for tyre-kickers to check out your car, although it probably might have realised a slightly higher figure had I persevered - but what value is my time?

So I went to my local BMW garage and they gave me a price to buy it in, which was OK but not spectacular - buyers market, I decided. Two weeks later I made contact again and they withdrew the offer because a stop had been placed on buying in cars as they had sufficient stock. Then I heard a radio ad for WeWillBuyYourCar.com and I thought I'd check them out online - I found a few negative comments but generally the consensus was positive and I gave them a try. One Monday evening I logged all the details of the car on their website and their system quoted me a nice price, better than the BMW place. Good start. So I clicked some "let's go for it" button and the next day had a phone call from them as they promised. Three days later a guy arrived by train from Hull, and was with us about two hours in all - checked all the service history and other paperwork and went over the car with a fine-toothed comb. Price got adjusted slightly due to a couple of supermarket car park dings, but I agreed a price and then we called the WeWillBuyYourCar.com office for me to say "go ahead" (I could have pulled out up to that point). 15 minutes later I checked my bank account online to find the money transferred, so I then handed over the keys and said goodbye. Easy peasy!

And as fuel prices continue to go up, we're laughing!

Carry a memory stick at all times

2008-06-23T09:10:00.004+01:00

A really easy win in the "Paperless office" stakes is a memory stick. I'm still amazed how few people carry one as a matter of course. Ever since I moved full-time into the IT industry in 1990, I have never gone too long without meeting someone asking me some sort of IT technical query about their PC - just as soon as they discover I work in IT (and particularly in Customer Support!), they latch onto it. Even though I am really proud of what I do, I try hard now to avoid telling people I am meeting for the first time. That said, my memory stick has got me out of a few holes in the past - both being able to carry useful files with me, and also to take copies of files back home to analyse further and advise on later. I still get away with a 2GB memory stick similar to the one in this photo here - although this is an 8GB model which is about the standard capacity these days - expect to pay about £15 in the UK for this. The thing I particularly like about this design is that it is very slim - some of the chunkier designs are awkward to use when you have something else in the adjacent USB socket. However, it isn't the most robust of memory sticks - you balance the survivability against the practicality.

How technology helps my children

2008-06-22T23:32:00.004+01:00

In his speech at our wedding 15 years ago, my father admitted he did not know me before I was five - and it wasn't because he travelled with his job. His business was less than a mile from home and he just stereotyped my mum into the stay-at-home wife who had his dinner on the table when he got home, and looked after the children. Just recently he admitted that he really had no influence on my development and he left her to do it. I've always admired the focus and commitment he gave his business, but it mades me cringe and I'm shaking my head in staggered disbelief even now how little he cared about me through my formative years.

So technology helps me work from home, and opens up all sorts of opportunities. The most important of these is that I get to spend more time with my wife and children due to zero commute time. In term time, I share the school runs pretty equally with my wife, and any day I can be kicking a ball about or helping them with homework the same minute I log off. And I want to, too.

No-one ever puts on their gravestone "I wish I had spent more time in the office", and if technology helps me get the work/family balance right, then it's got to be a good thing.

Internet Telephony

2008-06-20T08:49:00.004+01:00

As with many new technologies, it takes some time for them to settle down and be viable, and Internet Telephony is just one such area. Yes, Skype has been around for a while, and we've heard about VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) but very few are sure what it means. (Wikipedia definition here, should you have a minute!)

I am uncharacteristically late on the bandwagon on this one, but just recently I went over to VOIP with my employers and have been stunned by how good it is. So much so, I then signed up for Skype on my home PC and made my first call across London to a friend of mine (he had his webcam pointing the wrong direction, so I could see his shoulder but not his face, but don't tell him!).

I'm going to spend some more time investigating this, and possibly buying a hands-free phone which would work off my WiFi network. All sorts of possibilities here - BT and O2, you're going to have to fight more for my business!

The future of estate agents

2008-06-18T10:43:00.006+01:00

The UK housing market has been ably steered in the downward direction by the intransigence of Mr Brown and Mr Darling, who cannot seem to organise a booze-up in a brewery between them. Our Gordon, previously the self-promoted "safe pair of hands" is left looking culpable with his inept handling of the Northern Rock debacle, taking many weeks to decide what to do and allowing the market to create a huge level of uncertainty. I never thought I'd say this, but the US Government managed significantly better with their sorted-in-two-days approach to Bear Sterns and they sailed on almost regardless. OK, so the oil price has not helped, but is a compounded problem on top of the housing market. Yes, there were other factors too, like the no-brain who invented the >100% mortgage.

UK estate agents are having a bad time, with house sales by volume quoted as the worst for anything between 30 and 75 years (dependent on which news source you choose to believe) and some agents already laying off staff. Over the last 5-6 years particularly, the internet has revolutionised house selling, and I am expecting the housing sale downturn to play in favour of the internet due to its low cost base. By the time the market picks up (you guess when!), the most savvy websites are going to be the winners. Unless they really pull their fingers out, the first generation property portal sites will also be losers - Rightmove, PropertyFinder, FindAProperty, PrimeLocation etc, and if I were a betting man, I would put money on the second generation property sites (more like search engines now) to be the winners. So watch closely for Globrix, DotHomes and Zoomf to make their marks, along with agents like Foxtons whose business model is built around their website being the #1 selling place, rather than the office. Thus most of their selling staff are home-based and there is one central admin office for dealing with the legal side of things once a sale is agreed, and that can be in a lower-cost location.

The One Year Rule

2008-06-17T16:23:00.006+01:00

The One Year Rule is "Never buy software within one year of it being released". Software these days is so complex that there's no way any software house can hand-on-heart tell you that they have tested every conceivable combination of keypresses. It is thus given that "early adopter" users will find lots of bugs, which I'm sure would be really annoying. This rule applies particularly to operating systems like MS Vista. This approach is also known as "Never Buy Version One"

Welcome to The Paperless Office

2008-06-17T16:01:00.003+01:00

Welcome to Jeremy's blog "The Paperless Office". Here I am going to add some notes, thoughts, website links and so on - aiming at frequent short updates rather than wordy epistles.

As the strapline says, it's about "Life survival techniques using the Internet and Gadgets" - clearing your desk and life with everything except a keyboard, mouse and a VOIP headset. OK, so maybe a mobile is OK, or even a Blackberry if you insist.